Detroit police are on the hunt for a mob that severely beat a pickup truck driver who reportedly hit a boy trying to cross a street Wednesday afternoon. The driver exited his vehicle to check on the child’s condition and was then attacked, police said.
Police say the 54-year-old driver, whose wallet was stolen in the assault, wasn’t at fault for the accident and is hospitalized in critical condition, according to WWJ-TV in Detroit.
Image source: WXYZ-TV
Image source: WXYZ-TV
Officer Keisha Beasley-Dorsey confirmed to TheBlaze Thursday that “10 to 12 black males” attacked the driver.
“He could potentially die,” Sgt. Michael Woody told the Detroit Free Press, adding that the driver sustained multiple, serious head injuries.
He’s “still hanging on to his life,” Woody told the Detroit News.
The driver’s son told WXYZ-TV that his father has bleeding on the brain and family members are waiting to see if he needs brain surgery.
“He got his,” one woman who declined to give her name told the Free Press. “He got beat up real bad.”
“I think it lasted about one minute and then they let him go. And then they jumped back on him again and they did it about three times and finally someone was trying to help the guy that got beat up,” a witness who didn’t want to reveal his identity told WXYZ. “It was sad because I knew the guy was getting out of his car to try and see what damage he did.”
The boy was being treated for a broken leg at the same hospital and was expected to recover, theDetroit News reported. Detroit police confirmed to TheBlaze that he is 10.
James Duston Jr. told WXYZ he’s the boy’s godfather and said his name is David.
“David was laying right in front of the driveway and he had blood coming out of his mouth,” Dunston Jr. told WXYZ. “He couldn’t move his body.”
Dunston Jr., who said he witnessed the beating, said the family doesn’t approve of it.
“We don’t condone that at all. I told his mom and she just was like, no, we wouldn’t want that to happen,” Duston added to WXYZ. “I did see it happening. But my main concern honestly was on David. But then I thought they had stopped. But I don’t know. My concern was on my godson at the time.”
Image source: WXYZ-TV
Image source: WXYZ-TV
The woman who asked the Free Press to not identify her said she saw the truck hit the boy after he and about three other children tried to cross the street toward a gas station.
“This little boy was screaming,” the woman told the Free Press. “There was a lot of people that came out. It was crazy.” She said she and family members watched a group of males beat up the driver, who then went to the gas station for help.
The driver's pickup truck. (Image source: WDIV-TV)
The driver’s pickup truck. (Image source: WDIV-TV)
Debra Hughes, who told WWJ-TV in Detroit she’s a registered nurse, described a different scene in which she intervened and stopped the attack.
“He was already down, bleeding from the mouth and the nose — so there wasn’t nothing else they could do to him but kill him,” Hughes told WWJ.
“Then EMS came and I kept him calm, I kept his hands down and everything so he could be comfortable,” Hughes added. “He had the biggest gash on his head I ever seen — he was bleeding from the mouth and he was unconscious when I first got there.”
The woman who declined to give her name to the Free Press also said she’s become concerned over motorists “driving up and down the street fast” in the neighborhood where children often play.